Where to begin?
Ten days have passed since ConvergeSouth Music and things are starting to get back to normal once again. It’s not as though the event was so unmanageable that it completely drained me or took up all of my spare time in the planning, it’s just that I put a lot of pressure on myself to make sure that it was a great experience for everyone involved — from the performers to the photographers to the audience.
Along those lines, I’ve received great feedback from all involved, which is extremely satisfying, but there’s still one event experience nut to crack: to draw an audience size that both the performers and the venue deserves. Well, that’s not entirely true; a number of the performers told me that they dug playing an intimate crowd — one that listened, danced and grooved without loud chatter — which is great, but the bottom line is that I need to ensure that the venue draws the numbers they expected heading into the event.
That’s the reality of promoting shows.
So, as I start to gear up for the planning of The Verge — a semi-monthly showcase of local musicians with artist and audience media collaboration — I’m still processing lessons learned from putting on my first music event (particularly during a ConvergeSouth weekend in downtown Greensboro). Here are a few of the more obvious ones:
- Don’t charge a cover: Well, at least not $10. Greensboro residents as a whole don’t seem to be big time supporters of local music and college kids (there are five colleges in this city of 220,000 strong) aren’t about “wasting” perfectly good beer money on a cover. Post-college grads here love it when a Pat Benatar or Van Halen comes to town and seem more than willing to pay exorbitant prices for a ticket at the downtown clubs or the Coliseum to see them live. They’ll also show up in droves to see a great cover band, but for high-quality, local acts with less of a reputation and a propensity to play their own music? Fuggetaboutit.
- Don’t overlap other conference events: We charged $10 at the door last week because I honestly believed at least 50 badges would show up from ConvergeSouth. With a 99 person headcount limit (including staff and performers) at the venue, I figured we’d do fine with even an average outside draw. Unfortunately, only 15 or so made it out that night — the rest of the 150 or so were enjoying Q at Hoggard’s house, along with acoustic music provided by the Radials. Moral of the story? Always go cheaper at the door and never compete with Q.
- Establish relationships with people within mainstream media: I did everything I possibly could in getting the word out online (blogged about it here, on the ConvergeSouth blog, posted the event info to Eventful, 336Events & Facebook, posted images to flickr, etc.) and even created a bunch of posters that I stapled up around town and as far away as Chapel Hill. And while we did get some play in the local media (a great article by Jeri Rowe, a little blurb in Yes! Weekly, a few mentions by J’s Indie/Rock Mayhem), I didn’t spend a second to reach out and connect with any of the local radio programs in town. Chalk that one up to inexperience.
Okay, so those are a few of the promotion related elements that I need to work on. Thankfully, a bunch of things also went right last week, from the killer lineup to audience participation in creating media, so the foundation is in place. Now I just need to build upon it to create more of an event than a one-off show.
The first thing I plan on doing is to invite local filmmakers and photographers to join the mix.
(originally uploaded by jdubfudge)
The filmmaker contingency last week consisted solely of me and my bro’, but we had a great time shooting and can’t wait to start editing the music videos for each of the bands. So if we’re excited, I’m hoping that a good number of local filmmakers and film students would be geeked to have full access to a band and venue — including straight from the board audio — to shoot a live music video or two.
Not a bad portfolio piece, right?
As for photography, Michael Dunn and Stephen Charles are two of Greensboro’s finest pro/am photographers, and their work the other night resulted in more than a handful of amazing moments captured in pixels.
(shot by CharlesMedia™ at ConvergeSouth Music 2007)
(shot by Mikey aka DaSkinnyBlackMan at ConvergeSouth Music 2007)
If we can get consistent participation from talented photogs such as these guys, we’ll have an amazing set of media for the bands to use as they will.
And in a nutshell, that’s what’s driving me to put on The Verge.
Greensboro has an interesting creative community, but so much of the art scene is relatively underground; the film community raises it’s head every year during the 48 Hour Film Festival and then is unheard of again the rest of the year; local photographers have public shows once in a while, but nowhere near what I’m used to seeing when living in NYC; and local music, well, I’ve already expressed my $.02 along those lines.
As someone who doesn’t particularly belong to any of these communities, but longs for a greater influence of such communities on the culture of Greensboro (A.K.A. Khakitown, USA), this is my experience.
So the idea of creating a repeatable event where these disparate creative communities can overlap for one evening every month or so, producing media that not only showcases their talents live, but provides each other with promotional and portfolio pieces that can work for them into perpetuity on the internet… well, that truly excites me.
I’m not sure when the first event will take place, but I’ll keep posting ideas and inspiration as time goes by.
